Bell: B.C.'s NDP rulers shaft Alberta — again

We weren’t supposed to get the middle finger from the bigshots in British Columbia — again.

But we did. On Tuesday — again.

The B.C. NDP government wants to restrict shipments of oilsands crude across their province. The approved-but-not-built Trans Mountain pipeline expansion would transport oilsands crude through B.C. to the west coast.

It is more aggravation. It is another headache of a hurdle, a further pain in the butt.

You have to think. What is wrong with us in Alberta?

We have a carbon tax the NDP didn’t tell us about in the last election.

Under the NDP government’s thumb, we play it nice and we play it cool.

Under the NDP government’s thumb, we’re doing all that climate change stuff. We’re being real sweet to Mother Earth. We’re grooving to the rhythms of the universe, toeing the line on our NDP government’s brainwave to put us in the good books with all those opposing Alberta and its oil.

And we’re paying, carbon taxed to the great good place where pipelines get the thumbs up and then they get built.

Yes, do the supposed right thing and folks would be impressed.

People who didn’t like us would look at us and say: Gee, see those Albertans. We thought they were just Neanderthal, money-grubbing, wannabe Texan fossil-fuel trash. But look at how they’ve come around to our way of thinking.

Look at what they’re doing on the road to virtue.

And Premier Notley leads them, not some knuckle-dragging, climate change-denying right-wing piece of work kook.

Then Tuesday comes. The B.C. NDP government sticks it to us — again.

Premier Notley sounds angry. She sounds really mad. We did our part so why aren’t they doing theirs? Notley has staked her future on her plan for pipelines. Why aren’t her buds getting with the program?

Angry Notley says the B.C government doesn’t have the right to do what it’s doing, screwing Alberta over — again. OK, I put in the word screwing.

She says they’re grasping at straws. They’re playing games. It’s all political theatre.

The premier adds what they’re doing is against the Constitution and a whole bunch of laws. What B.C. is doing could affect a whole lot of jobs.

The B.C. powers-to-be are overreaching, trying to undo an approved pipeline and being inappropriate, destabilizing and thoughtless.

Notley figures B.C. is “creating a mockery out of our legal system.” B.C can’t do what they’re trying to do. Pipelines are Ottawa’s file.

“I’m hoping when the premier of British Columbia returns to the country we’ll be able to get things back on track.”

B.C. Premier John Horgan is in Asia.

“In the meantime, I’m not pulling any punches. This is bad. This is bad for British Columbians. This is bad for Albertans. This is bad for Canadians.”

Jason Kenney, UCP leader of the official opposition, speaking to supporters after being sworn in as member of Calgary-Lougheed in the Chamber at the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton, January 29, 2018. Ed Kaiser/Postmedia

Enter Jason Kenney, the United Conservative leader of the opposition. He says Notley is pulling her punches. Or not punching at all.

Kenney says Notley is “play-acting” in a “charade.”

“The fight isn’t with words. It has to be with actions.”

Kenney insists Alberta should take B.C. to court pronto and make clear there could be other consequences. Kenney hauls out an old line.

“If the mayor of Vancouver wants a carbon-free Vancouver by 2040 let’s try to give him one by 2020,” says the United Conservative leader.

“We can stop permitting the shipment of oil to Burnaby right now like Peter Lougheed did to eastern Canada in the early 1980s.”

As for the carbon tax getting us a pipeline …

“Albertans have been lied to, told if they pay the carbon tax they will get a pipeline. The whole thing has been hokum,” says Kenney.

“Here we have an Alberta NDP government that’s imposed a job-killing carbon tax and can’t even stop their NDP twins in B.C. from violating the Constitution and attacking the energy industry.”

Kenney says the Alberta NDP carbon tax hasn’t moved a single pipeline opponent to the Yes column and the opposition is as strong as ever.

“Instead we’ve got an NDP government in B.C. breaking the law to block our oil because the opponents of Alberta’s energy industry aren’t interested in compromise. They want to keep the oil in the ground.”

And when B.C. made their move Tuesday, Kenney was not surprised in the least.

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